Best Mural

Windows to the Past, Gateway to the Future

Readers Pick

Readers Pick
Windows to the Past, Gateway to the Future
Broadway Underpass Wall (by Steve Farley), Broadway Boulevard, just east of Congress Street

Once and future artist Farley now trades in the black arts of politics, having decamped to the state Legislature as rep for Tucson's District 28. But Tucson still benefits from his 1999 mural homage to the city's lost souls. Rendered in black-and-white tile, this beloved piece of public art reproduces historic photos of the citizens who once walked the downtown streets. These phantoms of another era are not the scary type of dead, though; our favorite is the young Lalo Guerrero, yet to achieve his musical fame. Mostly, though, the mural immortalizes the city's unsung, the anonymous wage workers of a bygone era, who might otherwise be completely forgotten in death.